My Apocalypse System Arrives 10 Years Early

Chapter 246: Chapter 184: Behind Every Pure and Auspicious Piece of Jadeite Lies a Pile of Bloody Syringes (Part 2)

Li Xiang, having reached Tier Six Extraordinary, had achieved what could be called Minor Spirit Body Achievement. Six vortexes of Spiritual Power churned within him, and his reserves were so vast and unparalleled that he was immune to all illnesses. Not even HIV could hope to touch him.

Of course, he was a man of self-discipline—a virgin in two lifetimes, with no other vices—so contracting HIV was an impossibility for him anyway.

Li Xiang came across a crystal-clear spring, so he stripped naked and got in for a swim and a bath.

Countless leeches swam toward him. With a pulse of his Spiritual Power, they were all instantly killed.

These were small-toothed mountain leeches, creatures with suckers at both ends. The front sucker housed their mouth, which contained three Y-shaped fleshy jaws, each lined with a row of tiny teeth along its ridge.

The bodies of these leeches were incredibly soft, capable of changing shape—growing larger or smaller, thicker or thinner. Even if you wore clothes, they could squeeze through the very weave of the fabric and burrow into your skin like a needle. They were also amphibious, living in the mountain forests and swimming in the water.

But Li Xiang was protected by his Spiritual Power. There wasn’t a single flaw in his defense, and the leeches couldn’t get near him.

’These conditions are brutal. This is no place for ordinary people. Back home is much better, with its beautiful mountains and clear waters.’ The mountains near Li Xiang’s home didn’t have these wretched things. While you might find some leeches in the paddy fields, there were never this many, and they certainly weren’t this disgusting and aggressive.

The last time Yao Yao had been planting rice seedlings in the paddies, she had only been bitten by a few small ones. But here, they were a dense, writhing mass. If Li Xiang didn’t have the protection of his Spiritual Power, they would have swarmed him and sucked him dry.

Li Xiang changed into a clean set of clothes, donned his Black Mountain Profound Armor, and continued to clear the mountain. By the end of the night, he had harvested over two thousand Achievement Points and more than one hundred and eighty stalks of Spiritual Medicine, bringing his balance to over sixty-nine thousand points.

「The next morning.」

He arrived in the Pakang Region of Kachin State, Northern Myanmar.

This was the world’s largest jadeite mining area, responsible for 95% of the global supply.

Li Xiang appeared on a barren mountain, silently gazing ahead.

There were no forests here, no vegetation, almost no green to be seen. The landscape was scarred with pits of all sizes, barren hills, and desolate wastes. In the distance, countless excavators roared as they worked. A ceaseless stream of dump trucks moved back and forth, hauling away loads of jade ore, earth, and slag.

The ore was trucked to warehouses outside the mining area, while the earth and slag were simply dumped nearby.

RUMBLE... As a dump truck’s bed rose and tilted, its load of ”garbage” tumbled out.

Before the ”garbage” had even finished spilling out, before the earth and stones had come to a rest, a dense swarm of Scavengers, like ants, surged forward, crowding onto the steep slope.

Not far away, another dump truck arrived. As rocks and mud tumbled down the slope, another group of waiting Scavengers rushed forward.

A large crowd of Scavengers waited below every dump site, their eyes taut with tension, ready to rush in and grab what they could.

The ”garbage hills” were soft and steep, making them difficult to climb. A man at the front of the pack failed to dodge in time and was struck by a millstone-sized boulder rolling down from a dump truck. He let out a piercing scream, and he and the massive rock tumbled down the high slope one after the other.

Many people dodged out of the way, then ran down after them.

At first, Li Xiang thought they were rushing to help the man. He had given them too much credit.

At the bottom of the slope, they all ran past the injured man—some even trampled right over his body. They were all rushing for the millstone-sized boulder!

What did the Scavengers scavenge for? They were picking through the waste, of course, looking for scraps of jade or small, rough stones the mining operation had missed.

A boulder that large... what if it contained jadeite? If it did, whoever claimed it would be rich!